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Arab World

Israeli Strikes Kill 3 People in Gaza, Hospital Says

Makeshift tents of displaced Palestinian families next to the beach in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 09 February 2026. (EPA)
Makeshift tents of displaced Palestinian families next to the beach in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 09 February 2026. (EPA)
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Israeli Strikes Kill 3 People in Gaza, Hospital Says

Makeshift tents of displaced Palestinian families next to the beach in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 09 February 2026. (EPA)
Makeshift tents of displaced Palestinian families next to the beach in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, 09 February 2026. (EPA)

Israeli military strikes on Monday killed three people west of Gaza City, according to the hospital where the casualties arrived.

Shifa Hospital reported the deaths amid the months-old ceasefire that has seen continued fighting. The Israeli army said Monday it is striking targets in response to Israeli troops coming under fire in the southern city of Rafah, which it says was a violation of the ceasefire. The army said it is striking targets “in a precise manner."

The four-month-old US-backed ceasefire followed stalled negotiations and included Israel and Hamas accepting a 20-point plan proposed by US President Donald Trump aimed at ending the war unleashed by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel. At the time, Trump said it would lead to a “strong, durable, and everlasting peace.”

Hamas freed all the living hostages it still held at the outset of the deal in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the remains of others.

But the larger issues the agreement sought to address, including the future governance of the strip, were met with reservations, and the US offered no firm timeline.

Rafah crossing improving, official says

The Palestinian official set to oversee day-to-day affairs in Gaza said on Monday that passage through the Rafah crossing with Egypt is starting to improve after a chaotic first week of reopening marked by confusion, delays and a limited number of crossings.

Ali Shaath, head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, told Egypt’s Al-Qahera News that operations at the crossing were improving on Sunday.

He said 88 Palestinians were scheduled to travel through Rafah on Monday, more than have crossed in the initial days since reopening. Israel did not immediately confirm the figures.

The European Union border mission at the crossing said in a statement Sunday that 284 Palestinians had crossed since reopening. Travelers included people returning after having fled the war and medical evacuees and their escorts. In total, 53 medical evacuees departed during the first five days of operations.

That remains well below the agreed target of 50 medical evacuees exiting and 50 returnees entering daily, negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials.

Shaath and other members of the committee remain in Egypt, without Israeli authorization to enter the war-battered enclave.

The Rafah crossing opened last week for the first time since mid-2024, one of the main requirements for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. It was closed Friday and Saturday because of confusion around operations.

Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people are seeking to leave Gaza for medical care unavailable in its largely destroyed health system.

Palestinians who returned to Gaza in the first days after the crossing reopened described hourslong delays and invasive searches by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. Israel denied mistreatment.

Gaza's Health Ministry said on Monday that five people were killed over the previous 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 581 since the October ceasefire. The truce led to the return of the remaining hostages — both living captives and bodies — from the 251 abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war.

Hamas-led fighters killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the attack. Israel’s military offensive has since killed over 72,000 Palestinians, according to the ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government and is staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties.

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Arab World

An Israeli Strike on a Hospital Highlights the Devastation to Gaza’s Healthcare System

A medical staff member salvages medical equipment at Nasser Hospital after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike overnight in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP)
A medical staff member salvages medical equipment at Nasser Hospital after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike overnight in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP)
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An Israeli Strike on a Hospital Highlights the Devastation to Gaza’s Healthcare System

A medical staff member salvages medical equipment at Nasser Hospital after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike overnight in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP)
A medical staff member salvages medical equipment at Nasser Hospital after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike overnight in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP)

A deadly airstrike on the biggest hospital in the southern Gaza Strip highlighted the devastation that Israel's campaign has wreaked on the Palestinian territory's healthcare system over the past three years.

The strike that hit Nasser Hospital's surgical wing killed six people, including a surgeon and a 13-year-old boy, and heavily damaged operating rooms and patient wards. The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas commander using the hospital as a base, though it did not provide evidence for the claim.

Israel has carried out near daily strikes in Gaza despite a ceasefire agreement with Hamas that took effect in October 2025. Israel says it is targeting fighters. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas' deadly October 2023 attack on southern Israel.

Direct attacks on hospitals have become rarer during the truce. But Thursday's strike underscored how Gaza's health system is still struggling to recover.

Here is a look at Israel's attacks on hospitals, its accusations against Hamas and the impact on Gaza's healthcare system.

Israel has attacked Gaza hospitals frequently in the war

The Israeli military besieged multiple hospitals around Gaza throughout the war, often surrounding them for weeks and battering them with strikes and gunfire while patients and staff were trapped inside and supplies ran out. Some sieges ended with troops storming hospitals, often leaving medical equipment destroyed, or with staff and patients forced to evacuate. Troops detained hundreds of healthcare workers.

Two major raids left Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, in ruins.

Aside from the sieges, hospitals and other medical facilities have frequently come under Israeli fire or been hit by airstrikes that the military says target Hamas fighters. During some of the worst months, as few as 14 of Gaza's 36 prewar hospitals were functioning, and shortages of medicine meant patients writhed in pain without painkillers and deadly infections ran rampant.

The World Health Organization says it has documented more than 1,050 attacks on health facilities in Gaza, causing more than 1,000 deaths. The UN says more than 1,700 medical personnel were killed in the war, including in strikes away from medical facilities. At least six medical staffers from Gaza, including three prominent doctors, have died in Israeli prisons, according to rights groups that have documented abuses in custody.

Israeli forces have struck Nasser Hospital repeatedly. In 2025, the military killed 22 people when it shelled a vantage point used by reporters on the hospital roof, then hit rescue workers and journalists rushing to help the wounded. Among those killed were five journalists, including Mariam Dagga, who was working with The Associated Press.

While attacks during the ceasefire have waned, some strikes in recent months have damaged medical facilities, according to the UN.

Israel accuses Hamas of using the facilities for military purposes

Israel has sought to justify the assaults by accusing Hamas of using the hospitals as command-and-control centers, though it has provided limited evidence. Palestinian and hospital officials have denied these claims.

Hamas security men have sometimes been seen in hospitals, controlling access to certain areas.

The international medical aid group Doctors Without Borders suspended most operations at Nasser Hospital in January because of the presence of masked armed men and situations in which patients were arrested or intimidated. It resumed operations a few months later, citing “concrete improvements” after talks with Gaza authorities, including restrictions on entry of armed individuals.

In the case of Nasser Hospital, the Israeli military said Thursday that it was targeting Muhammad Abu Ismail, who it said headed Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade and had been using the facility as a headquarters for planning attacks.

It did not explain why the hospital’s surgical unit was targeted. The strike smashed through a patient recovery area and wrecked operating rooms and a rest area for doctors.

The military did not say whether it had killed Abu Ismail. He was not on the hospital’s list of people killed.

International law gives protections to hospitals Hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law and attacking them is a war crime.

Medical facilities can lose that protected status if they are used for military purposes “to commit acts harmful to the enemy.” But the Geneva Conventions, passed in 1949, say there must be a warning with a reasonable period of time before any attack, and that the attack must be proportional to the military threat and take care to avoid civilian casualties.

The Israeli military said it had held “warning conversations” with Gaza health officials before Thursday's strike regarding militant use of hospitals. It said it made clear that “if the activity was not halted, it would act to remove the threats posed by it.”

Medical organizations and rights groups also have criticized Israel’s restrictions on medical aid and equipment entering Gaza as a violation of international law. The Israeli military says it allows aid to enter Gaza but bars some “dual use” items it asserts could be used for military purposes.

Gaza's healthcare system is struggling to recover

Israel’s attacks, along with restrictions on aid, have left Gaza’s healthcare system in ruins. Twenty of Gaza’s 36 pre-war hospitals are functioning, though none is fully operational.

During much of the war, some of those hospitals offered little beyond first aid even as they dealt with scores of wounded people. They struggled to keep lights and equipment functioning because of fuel shortages.

The ceasefire deal has given aid groups and the Health Ministry breathing room to get some services functioning again. But the sector continues to suffer from Israel’s restrictions on entry or slow approvals for medicines, supplies and equipment. The World Health Organization said in a Sept. 30 report that 47% of essential medicines were out of stock and that shortages in lab supplies, medical equipment, spare parts and fuel hampered health work.

At the same time, hospitals and clinics struggle to treat a population where almost everyone has lost their homes and more than 1.6 million live in tents or other ramshackle shelters. Communicable diseases and infections are widespread, and thousands have life-changing wounds from the war.

Arab World

Sudan: Haroun’s Lawyers Doubt He Will Be Turned over to ICC

Ahmed Haroun, governor of Sudan's embattled state of South Kordofan, speaks to reporters in Khartoum on July 26, 2011. (AFP)
Ahmed Haroun, governor of Sudan's embattled state of South Kordofan, speaks to reporters in Khartoum on July 26, 2011. (AFP)
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Sudan: Haroun’s Lawyers Doubt He Will Be Turned over to ICC

Ahmed Haroun, governor of Sudan's embattled state of South Kordofan, speaks to reporters in Khartoum on July 26, 2011. (AFP)
Ahmed Haroun, governor of Sudan's embattled state of South Kordofan, speaks to reporters in Khartoum on July 26, 2011. (AFP)

The arrest of Ahmed Haroun, former head of the ruling National Congress Party under former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, has reignited debate over the fate of former regime leaders wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), as well as the military establishment's relationship with the Islamist movement.

Awatif al-Jaali, a member of Haroun’s defense team, said members of the team doubt his detention is linked to arrangements to hand him over to the ICC, which seeks him on charges of "committing war crimes in the Darfur region during al-Bashir's rule."

Al-Jaali told Asharq Al-Awsat that her client was arrested while traveling from the eastern Sudanese city of Kassala to the capital, Khartoum, by an unidentified security agency. She confirmed that the defense team has no information regarding his place of detention or the circumstances surrounding his arrest.

The defense team intends to submit a request to judicial authorities to allow its lawyers to meet with their client, ascertain the reasons for his arrest, and identify the authority that issued the order before determining the next legal steps, she said.

The defense team comprises lawyers from both inside and outside Sudan, she revealed.

Moreover, Al-Jaali described the arrest as "illegal," saying that it "contradicts rights guaranteed by the constitution and the law, foremost among them freedom of expression of political and ideological views."

Haroun's arrest came days after he appeared in a televised interview in which he revisited the topic of his party's relationship with the military establishment and declared his support for army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, adding that the latter had been influenced by what he described as media hype and international pressure against Islamists.

In an interview with Reuters last year, Haroun said he expected that the army would remain in power after the war ends, stressing the need to reach a formula defining its role in political life.

He also said that his party seeks to return to governing the country following a post-war transitional phase.

His recent statements drew criticism from anti-war political and civil forces, which argued that allowing former regime leaders to move freely inside the country, despite facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, reflects their continued political and security influence.

Political forces said that Haroun's arrest may be an attempt to contain the fallout from his media appearance and absorb the domestic and international pressure and criticism that followed, particularly amid growing debate over the nature of the relationship between the army and Islamists, and the extent to which military decision-making is independent of its influence.

Arab World

Sweida Activist Speaks of Preparations to Drag Governorate into Confrontation with Syrian Security

Gunmen loyal to al-Hijri on patrol in Sweida. (AFP file)
Gunmen loyal to al-Hijri on patrol in Sweida. (AFP file)
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Sweida Activist Speaks of Preparations to Drag Governorate into Confrontation with Syrian Security

Gunmen loyal to al-Hijri on patrol in Sweida. (AFP file)
Gunmen loyal to al-Hijri on patrol in Sweida. (AFP file)

An activist leader in Syria's Druze-majority Sweida governorate has warned of ongoing attempts by the so-called "National Guard" to "drag the governorate into a new, wide-scale confrontation" with the government's Internal Security Forces, "under the direction of an Israeli politician who is a former Knesset member, and Syrian Druze politicians residing abroad."
An informed source inside Sweida city did not rule out the claim, noting that "these actors are pushing for this in an attempt to thwart the formation of an Israeli government led by Gadi Eisenkot."
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, the activist, who opposes the policies of Sheikh al-Aql Hikmat al-Hijri and his "National Guard," said: "Currently, there are those trying to sow discord anew and create unrest with the villages where the (government) Internal Security Forces are deployed."
"After every period of calm and the emergence of a possibility to initiate dialogue, someone seeks to escalate the situation again," he said.
A cautious calm has held along the governorate's frontlines for roughly three weeks between Internal Security Forces and the "National Guard." Al-Hijri has also refrained from making any statements that might stoke tensions.
The source said the plot to reignite tensions in the governorate also involves "striking the sites where the (National Guard) holds detainees, in order to cover up for prisoners who were handed over in exchange for sums of money."
He believed the plan to rekindle tensions in the governorate serves multiple purposes, including "undermining the positive role Jordan is playing toward the new Syria and efforts to resolve the Sweida crisis," as well as causing "a certain embarrassment" to Israeli Prime Minister-designate Eisenkot.
The "National Guard," which controls wide swaths of the governorate, including Sweida city, "possesses the capabilities to reignite tensions" with the Internal Security Forces, "especially as it works relentlessly to fuel resentment among residents against the government," he added.
He warned: "Once the battle begins, every civilian will be forced to carry arms," stressing the need to "deprive them of the opportunity to widen the rift and ease tensions until we reach a national solution."
A source residing in Sweida city told Asharq Al-Awsat: "Instruments of the (Likud) party are pushing to drag the governorate into a confrontation with Syrian security, in order to find a pretext for Israel to intervene against the Syrian state under the guise of protecting the Druze."
Sweida Governor Mustafa al-Bakour had previously extended several invitations to residents for dialogue to resolve the governorate's crisis, which has persisted since the July 2025 unrest. His calls went unanswered.
Several sources in Sweida said this is due to "the policy of repression and treason accusations prevailing in the areas under the influence of al-Hijri and the National Guard, who reject dialogue with the government, demand the right to self-determination, and sought - with the support of outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - to separate the governorate from Syria and establish what is called the (State of Bashan)" there.